"I was engaged in a 'gun control' discussion with someone who, as so often occurs, had no experience with guns
but had largely fallen victim to the distorted messages that flood us from Hollywood and the anti-gun
lobby. To try to add some perspective to our debate, I asked if he knew, ballpark, just how many
deaths occur by gunshot in the US annually. His answer: "I'm sure it must be, what,
MILLIONS..." Thus was born the Life/Death Clock..."
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-- Mike Haas, AmmoGuide and Life/Death Clock author
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The goal of the Life/Death Clock is to to add real perspective to the discussion
of the social costs/benefits of gun ownership in America.
Mike Haas
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AmmoGuide author Mike Haas created the first Life/Death Clock
in the early 1990's as a standalone program for the Amiga Computing Platform. Mike developed the web-based version
as the globally accessible "World Wide Web" gained prominence and enabled the Life/Death Clock to more widely
communicate its message.
Mike donated the Life/Death Clock module
to the The NRA Members' Councils of California
for installation on their California NRA state website. We load the Life/Death Clock from that website for display below.
The direct link to the Life/Death Clock is http://calnra.com/lifeclock/.
Statistics have been drawn from sources believed to be considered supportable
by peer review. No source was chosen because it supported a particular
result over another. (In fact, only one source could be found for most of the types of events.)
The displayed values are believed to be representative of current annual rates of the
various types of events in the United States. No attempt has been made to slant the results,
only categorize and display the results fairly.
Credibility dictates that, as more accurate data is located, these figures are adjusted. Since the figures
originally posted in the first Life/Death Clock, adjustments
have resulted in an increase in the posted number of deaths by "DOCTOR'S MISTAKES" and
a reduction in the posted number of "LIVES SAVED" because a firearm was accessible.
The Life/Death Clock begins to reveal trends after just a few minutes of tallying.
